Jenny's Reviews > Return of the Jedi

4 ⭐️

Now THAT’s what I’m talking about! If A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back were missing details, this one hit the nail on the head. In fact, it even made things clearer concerning some following details in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.

One of those details is Leia and the Force. Having only ever seen the movies, I was shocked when I saw Leia perform that trick when she’s shot in space. It made no sense, for she had never explicitely felt or dealt with the Force. Reading how she connected with Luke through space and with the Endor forest, though, it’s a lot more believable that she always had affinities with the Force, but that those were never fully explored in the movies. I can easily believe she worked on it with Luke in years after the Empire’s fall and before the rise of the First Order.

I was even more deeply touched that the ending moments of Darth Vader were so close to the Anakin we know that I couldn’t help but shed a few tears. The movies glosses over the details, but the novelization pinpointed how Anakin feels perfectly. It warmed me to be able to get a glimpse of my favourite character once again.

Unfortunately, Lucas seemed to have forgotten to reread the original novels before making the prequels. Some disturbing details in Obi-Wan’s memories of Luke and Leia’s youth do not align at all with what we saw in episodes I-III; mainly that Luke and Leia never knew their mother and that Anakin did know Padme was pregnant.

Not perfect, but as close to the prequel novelizations as I could hope for, considering this was written some 20-something years ago.